Neat-O: Elan g! Controls 11 TVs, 54 Speakers, 20+ Audio Zones

Elan g! system controls 11 TVs, 54 speakers and 20-plus audio zones inside 10,000-square-foot home. There are four equipment racks in a beautiful custom cabinet serving as a shrine to the high-tech prowess.

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

Pinterest

LinkedIn

Arlen Schweiger
· February 9, 2012

This 10,000-square-foot home has 11 flat-panel TVs, 54 speakers, more than 20 zones of audio and a dozen video zones, an Elan g! system to control everything … and four racks displayed in a beautiful custom cabinet as almost a shrine to the high-tech prowess. They’re sitting pretty on the wall of a well-done media room that features a 106-inch motorized drop-down screen.

“Originally we were going to have standalone racks in the utility room, but the homeowner invested a lot of money and wanted to see the gear,” says installer Dan Cochenour, president of Chicago-area Audio Video Specialists.

While it looks innocuous, the rack location was anything but ideal for Cochenour, who notes that the space was chosen essentially by process of elimination. The proximity to the room’s corner made for some difficult wiring paths because of the merging walls and double studs, “so there was some adventure with that,” says Cochenour.

Also, more racks - mostly for networking equipment and home runs to the Vantage lighting system - are located behind the wall in a closet under a stairway. Cochenour says that in hindsight, he would have had the builder cut the wall to leave an open space to better access the back of the four Middle Atlantic pullout racks.

“We basically had the racks out in the room for a month while we were doing everything, and we sealed off that room while we were working on the rest of the house,” says Cochenour. “We had the security system and the surveillance up and running, so we had everything locked down.”

Two of the racks are dedicated more to the A/V side of the install, like the amplifiers and Blu-ray disc changers, while the other two lean toward the control aspects. All of the wiring and cabling in the back is from Planet Waves, which Cochenour says “makes for a nice, clean look.”

Audio Video Specialists employed an electronic lock to keep prying fingers from the four racks in this media room. Click image to enlarge.

Cochenour did work with the builder on construction of the cabinet that houses the racks. Rich Bondarowicz, president of Smart Group, LLC, built the cabinet and included small, inconspicuous slots at the bottom to keep things well ventilated. Cochenour installed a couple of sensors within the cabinet, so if the temperature goes above 85 degrees, they signal the Elan g! system to activate fans inside.

While the homeowner likes to show off the equipment, the racks are for looking and not touching - especially with three young children. So to top things off, Cochenour incorporated an electronic lock from Chicago-based TZ Radial, a company he remembered from an AVAD Vendopalooza years back but had never worked with before.

The lock easily tied into the Elan system, Cochenour says, and it’s programmed so the homeowner can only open the cabinet door after pressing and holding an A/V icon for five seconds on the GUI. That worked so well that the device was put on the liquor cabinet, too, only the button to unlock it looks like a Corona beer bottle.

“It’s one of those things that you see at a show and say, ‘Oh, that’s cool,’ but it’s not every day that you have an application that fits it,” Cochenour says. “Now I’m looking for ways that I can use it.”